I put the aforementioned term in “quotations” not because I find it frivolous, but rather because I remember the many injustices which have been committed in the name of furthering or protecting these “human rights”; the war in Iraq and interventions in Libya and Syria come most readily to mind in this context. The German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle brought this issue to the fore in a 26 September 2018 article by Felix Tamsut entitled “Human rights in the spotlight for Euro 2024 host bid”. According to Deutsche Welle:

For the first time ever, UEFA has included clauses related to the human rights situation in the hosting country as part of its bidding process. In its announcement, UEFA said the bidding country has to “culturally embed human rights,” as well as “proactively address human rights risks.” The term “human rights” was mentioned 11 times in UEFA’s final evaluation report of both Germany and Turkey, which goes to show the importance of both countries’ record in the field. For comparison, the same report released ahead of Euro 2020 did not contain that term at all.

To any reader, this should itself stand out. How could it be that “human rights” comes to the fore when Turkey is involved? I would argue that this newfound interest in “human rights” is more a result of Western virtue signaling—in the name of a kinder form of imperialism—than it is a reflection of Turkey’s own human rights record. This is not to say that Turkey has not presented the world with a very real contradiction in terms—as an authoritarian neoliberal state—but, I believe, the “human rights” records of other recent hosts of football’s major tournaments have not been held to the same standard, leading this observer to believe that something else is behind this form of opinion shaping emanating from the global “West”. For a moment, lets look at the cases going back from the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa (Indeed, a cursory Google search of “Human rights Germany World Cup” or “Human rights France Euro 2016” reveals nothing, either a result of Google’s own censorship policies or—more realistically—a result of the fact that the issue of “human rights” was never brought up in the context of these “Western” bids).

There has been an increase in police harassment of informal traders (hawkers), homeless South Africans, and refugees and migrants who are living in shelters or high density inner city accommodation.

This harassment has included police raids, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment and extortion, as well as destruction of informal housing.

The tearing down of informal housing has taken place without prior notice, provision of adequate alternative housing or compensation and in violation of domestic law prohibiting forced evictions.

Regulations created to comply with FIFA World Cup requirements in host cities are being used by police to expel homeless people and street traders from “controlled access sites” and exclusion zones around World Cup venues. Penalties for offences under the regulations include fines of up to Rand 10,000 {$1,300] or imprisonment of up to six months.

Of course, this emphasis on sheltering the world from the realities of poverty in South Africa—especially by destroying informal housing—is hardly unique to the South African case. Indeed, it is part and parcel of the trend for international sporting events to deflect attention from the reality of urban poverty in the non-Western world so as to present a utopian vision of society by sweeping the problems under the proverbial rug. Indeed, the Brazilian World Cup suffered from a similar tendency.

The excessive use of force by Brazilian police in response to the widespread protests last year resulted in many people injured. Rather than training the police in how to deal with peaceful mass protests, the government’s response has been to criminalize protesters giving the security services carte blanche to arrest and detain people at will. New laws have been proposed that threaten the right to freedom of expression. This is not just about the World Cup but will have long-term consequences for any future peaceful protests.

Indeed, the Guardian (surprisingly) was one of the Western news outlets to report on the widespread “social cleansing” of Rio de Janeiro’s “favelas”. According to the 2013 story, “At least 19,000 families have been moved to make way for roads, renovated stadiums, an athletes’ village, an ambitious redevelopment of the port area and other projects that have been launched or accelerated to prepare the city for the world’s two biggest sporting events [the Olympics and FIFA World Cup]”. Predictably, of course, the government justified the forced eviction of the country’s poorest citizens as “necessary to modernize the city”.

FIFA World Cup 2018 Hosted by Russia

Even before the summer of 2018, Human Rights Watch published a piece on 21 March 2018 readying viewers for the “World Cup of Shame” to be hosted by Russia, noting that there is no better way for countries to “exercise soft power than hosting the top tournament of the world’s most popular sport”. Indeed, after the tournament, the same news outlet claimed that “the human costs” of Russia’s “bloody World Cup” were high, citing the death of at least 21 workers involved in stadium construction and the country’s ongoing discrimination of its LGBT citizens. Yet even Russia’s “human rights” abuses are nothing when compared to Qatars.

FIFA World CUP 2022 Hosted by Qatar

Amnesty International’s piece “Qatar World Cup of Shame” details the plight of Qatar’s migrant workers who have been imported to help construct the country’s new stadiums, detailing the (often) forced nature of their labor and appalling working conditions. The graphic below provides some important context of the argument against Qatar 2020.

This is how we now arrive at the Euro 2024 bid, where Turkey—despite boasting a strong football infrastructure, as well as offering beautiful tourist sights and a vibrant culture full of hospitable locals—loses its bid to Germany on the basis of “human rights”. If such things truly mattered for hosting international football tournaments, then South Africa and Brazil would not have been able to cleanse urban areas of their unwanted urban poor while Russia and Qatar would not have been able to build their infrastructure through poorly regulated labor contracts which—in the case of the latter—border on slavery. Yet, all four of these countries were able to abuse human rights while successfully sanitizing urban areas to better fit the consumerist ethos of modern sports.

And this is where we get to the real reason that Turkey was not chosen to host UEFA Euro 2024. It is not about human rights, nor is it about Turkey’s perceived ability (or inability) to host a major tournament; Turkey would make a fine host. But instead, it is about consumption. Since the Turkish Lira has lost 40 percent against the U.S. Dollar in the past year, many economists fear that the country’s economy is heading into recession. If this happens it will mean that Turkish consumers will not be able to consume as much as they would in a stronger economy; thus—for the sports marketers who (behind the scenes) ultimately decide the location of international sporting events—Turkey is not the best choice of venue. Make no mistake, the rhetoric behind the “human rights” argument is just a veneer of Western virtue signaling which does not stand up to empirical scrutiny when the cases of Qatar, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa are considered. Of course, it is also worth noting that the aforementioned four cases also were chosen at a time when globalism was ascendant; with this disastrous global ideology seemingly on the back foot it seems that Europe is circling the wagons to ensure that—at least—the European Championships stay in the heart of Europe as we end the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Of course, the ethno-centric nature of UEFA’s decision to award Germany the bid will also be obscured by the “human rights” discourse, pointing to yet another way that virtue signaling serves to discourage the search for alternative explanations which both stray from the dominant media narrative, but which also might be closer to the truth.

Many journalistic and academic works about football tend to focus on the negative aspects of football fandom, particularly harping on rare instances of hooliganism or “xenophobia” in order further a narrative designed to transform football fans from emotional “supporters” into docile “consumers”. In so doing, however, these writers often (perhaps purposefully) choose to ignore the positive aspects of sport which can actually bring people together in traumatic times of grief and sorrow. The footballing world’s response to the tragic wildfires which recently engulfed the environs of Athens, claiming over 80 lives, are an example of this function of sport.

On June 24 2018, Turkey will head into a crucial election which will define the future of the nation. The reverberations of this election will be felt far beyond the borders of Turkey, as it is a battle between globalism and nationalism. Indeed, it seems that many Turkish politicians are aware of this battle as they have looked to use football to stoke nationalism in a bid to paint over the fact that Turkey has, for the last 16 years, been led by the globalists of the Justice and Development party (AKP). And, just like in the wider world, globalism is teetering on the brink in Turkey.

Some commentators, like the Washington Post, saw Donald Trump’s election as “the end of the world order”, with European Council President Donald Tusk claiming that Mr. Trump’s actions “play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist”. While this fear mongering is unfounded—after all, it is arguable whether or not the post Cold War “New World Order” has truly brought “liberal democracy” or “fundamental freedoms” to the world—it is true that the world is going through a profound transformation; Turkey might just be the latest country to experience this transformation.

For too many years national leaders around the world have preferred their own pocketbooks to their peoples’ well-being as they “built bridges” with multinational corporations, ignoring national borders in order to benefit the flow of corporate dollars while individual citizens struggled. This state of affairs has gone on for so long that people have come to believe that this is the only way forward, that globalization can be the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is why we have seen Germany’s Angela Merkel—who has taken issue with Mr. Trump’s nationalist rhetoric before—so ready to support Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the upcoming elections. Despite recent diplomatic spats between their two countries, Ms. Merkel reportedly invited Mr. Erdogan to Berlin following the election (essentially seeing a victory for Mr. Erdogan as the only possible outcome). While Berlin refuted the invite (likely following criticism), Mr. Erdogan’s opponents seized on the invitation.

Opposition leader Muharrem Ince asked on 30 May 2018 “What partnership do you [Ms. Merkel] have that you’re trying make him [Mr. Erdogan] succeed? Will you benefit from his election? We are not butlers of Germany, we are the independent Republic of Turkey.” Similarly, the imprisoned leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas told Ms. Merkel that she would be inviting Mr. Erdogan as a retired President. Indeed, the actions by Ms. Merkel are hardly becoming of a leader who continually pledges support for “democracy” and Western liberal values, but they go far to show just how bankrupt such sentiments have become. Mr. Erdogan has also been shaken by this precarious state of affairs, and has repeatedly made false claims on the campaign trail while appealing to voters. His contradictions are to be expected; after all he is running on a nationalist platform despite being a globalist. Even the AKP’s 2018 election slogan is “Vakit Turkiye Vakti”, which translates roughly as “The Time is Turkey’s Time”. Of course, this is an absurd slogan and makes one ask: if this is now “Turkey’s Time”, then whose time was it for the past 16 years with the AKP in power? Implicit in this slogan, of course, is that the globalist time is now over. While many voters in Turkey might recognize this Freudian slip in the slogan, it is clear that AKP politicians are looking to use football in order to bolster their localist credentials while further dividing the electorate.

The Football Fans Are United This Election. Source Unknown.

Later, on 18 June, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim attempted to ride the football wave in Izmir by pointing out to supporters of Karsiyaka SK that while other clubs in Izmir (such as Goztepe) have gotten new stadiums, Karsiyaka has not. While Mr. Yildirim may have thought that this move would gather votes from a district of Izmir that has consistently shown high rates of support for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)—up to 80 percent—his presentation left much to be desired. In his speech, Mr. Yildirim incorrectly recited the famous Karsiyaka chant “Kaf Kaf Kaf, Sin Sin Sin, Kaf Sin Kaf Sin Kaf” as “Sin Sin Sin, Kaf Kaf Kaf, Sin Kaf” before trailing off (for a correct rendition, please see here). For many commentators, this has become a topic of ridicule. Karsiyaka SK’s famous chant is something that not only every football fan in Turkey knows, but also something that almost everyone from Izmir knows. It is deeply embedded in Turkish culture, and the fact that the nation’s Prime Minister—and native of Izmir—could butcher this chant shows just how detached the AKP politicians have become from the public they claim to represent. By attempting to appeal to local pride, Mr. Yildirim instead revealed the extent to which globalism—and the pursuit of foreign capital—drives AKP policies in Turkey while also encouraging the division of the electorate, in this case along the lines of football support.

While the AKP look to confuse voters by oscillating between globalist and nationalist positions, recent polls do not look good for the ruling party. Opinion polls from May 2018 found that the AKP enjoys the support of just 34.8 percent of voters. By comparison, the opposition CHP, IYI Party, and HDP enjoy 23.4, 17.2, and 14.1 percent support, respectively. With support for President Erdogan in the presidential election at just under 40 percent, it is likely that the election will necessitate a run off on 8 July (https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-43907962 , which Mr. Erdogan may not win.

From Top:

“Which Party Would You Vote For In a General Election Were it To be Held This Sunday?”

“Which Candidate Would You Vote For In a Presidential Election Held This Sunday?”

Predicted Combined “Coalition” Votes.

With globalism teetering on the brink in Turkey, it will not be surprising if the headlines in the Western media after the election read “Erdo-Gone”. Of course, if the AKP’s years of uncontested rule are to finally end, it will first require the Turkish electorate to put the divisions fostered by globalism aside and truly unite as a nation. If football fans are able to unite, then there is no reason that the electorate cannot unite as well. The days of supporting political parties like one supports a football team—the mentality of “takim tutar gibi”—must first end if there is to be any hope of escaping the dystopia of globalism in Turkey. Only by defeating the imperialism of globalism can there be true development–and prosperity–in nations around the world.

For an introduction to the topic, please see my earlier post from 6 July 2017 here. In short, my argument is that when the logic of consumption drives the creative process, one dimensional thought becomes the norm. Designers and creative minds are unwilling—in fact, in some cases, they may even be scared—to stray from the “tried and true” methods. After all, these are the methods that have brought profit. Therefore, creativity is stifled by a dominant form of one dimensional thought which cannot stray from its own money-making logic.

This is why cars have started to look more and more the same, and why mobile (or cellular) telephones are virtually indistinguishable from one another regardless of if they are iPhones, Samsungs, Nokias, HTCs, LGs, or any other brand. As a human society, we have become used to images—we are obsessed with them, as Jean Baudrillard has said—and this means that our reality is more of a hyperreality dominated by these images. We know what a mobile phone should look like, anything that does not look like the image we have been grown used to cannot be a phone (think of flip-phone versus iPhone). Similarly, with cars, we see the same process. We have become used to what a “luxury” car should look like, so we cannot conceive of anything that does not look like what we expect (perhaps this is why Hyundais and Kias look virtually the same while also resembling more expensive brands like BMW and Audi).

Unfortunately, football shirts are not immune from this ongoing homogenization in the name of increasing consumption, and the latest World Cup shirt designs show this. More than a few of this year’s shirts bare a striking resemblance to older shirts, which makes for a very boring overall lineup.

While Germany’s shirt might be striking in this line up, it is merely a rehashing of the classic West Germany shirt from 1988. And, like so many shirts on this list, the new one is not as nearly as well designed as the old one. Indeed, sequels are never as good as the originals.

It is important to note that this list—and this criticism of the 2018 shirt line up—is not to say that respecting the past, and paying homage to past designs, is not a bad thing. Indeed, respecting the past and what has come before is a good thing. But this does not mean that we should be blind to the fact that, in the name of consumption, we are being sold the past back to us in the present. It means that while we—as consumers—are paying more and more for our products, while the designers may be getting less and less creative. And it also means that there is a very real double standard in world football when it comes to shirt designs.

I will leave this post with a comparison between the 1996 Turkey Home and Away shirts and the 2016 “Spider Man” home and away Turkish Kits. Perhaps, in this instance, the designers would have done well to seek some inspiration from the past. But even here, the “past” of 1996 still represented by an Adidas template.

New vs. Old. I am not a fan of the new shirts at all. Image Courtesy of the Author.

In March 2018 a Turkish sports pundit, Mehmet Demirkol, came out threatening to take the Turkish FA to court if they did not return to the classic Turkish national shirt design. The classic design has been changed on and off for years, culminating in the monstrosity of the 2016 “Spider Man” kits. And it is here that I agree with Mr. Demirkol. There is such a thing as national symbols, and—as Mr. Demirkol argues—the football shirt is a national symbol. We do not see international corporations like Nike and Adidas playing with German, English, Brazilian, Dutch, or Argentine kits. No, such countries have been wearing similar designs for years. Indeed, as I pointed out, Germany has returned to a classic design for the 2018 World Cup. Yet countries like Mexico and Turkey have their kits played with—and their national heritages ignored—by the whims of global capital. In order to resist the ongoing global homogenization of global corporations and globalist ideas, it is important to respect your national heritage regardless of which country you come from. And, even when it comes to football shirts, we can still stand up for our countries in the face of globalism.

I have written on this coming crisis multiple times before (in 2014 and in 2017), since the pace of privatization—and the selling off of Turkish assets to foreign ownership—was never going to end well. Unfortunately for Turkey, however, the country has been run by a globalist leader who never truly cared for his citizens any more than fellow globalist leader Barack Obama cared about the American people during his eight year tenure. While Bloomberg author Benjamin Harvey seems to connect this crisis to the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alone, his analysis misses the mark. No, the problem is not specifically the leader; the problem—rather—is a globalist power structure which privileges international capital over human lives. Having made a deal with international capital (or, perhaps, the devil?) in 2002 to stabilize the Turkish economy in the wake of a 2001 currency crisis—which saw the dollar’s value double in Turkey overnight—Mr. Erdogan, from the beginning, was used to following the dictates of international capital. As Mr. Harvey writes:

When Erdogan’s party swept to victory in 2002 on pledges to open markets and liberalize institutions, Turkey’s economy was on life support, requiring an international rescue package that topped $20 billion. The lira had collapsed, along with a handful of banks and government efforts to contain raging inflation.

Over the course of the last fifteen years, bolstered by steady support from its base, Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party has gotten complacent. They believed that, regardless of what they did, they would continue to get votes while selling away the country.

Mr. Harvey, while rightly seeing the Gezi protests of 2013 as a turning point, conveniently ignores some major qualities inherent in the globalist style of rule. Mr. Harvey claims that, following Gezi, “The sense of optimism, the belief that Turks of various stripes and ideologies were all in the same boat, was replaced by a relentless divisiveness in political culture, exacerbated by a sense of grievance emanating from their uncompromising leader”. What is important to note is that this “divisiveness in political culture” was present long before Gezi; indeed it was what cemented Mr. Erdogan’s power in the first place. Identity politics, like in the United States, is the key to creating the kind of mass movements that globalism feeds on. In order to get the masses behind a movement, the populace must first be “massified”. This “Massification”—for lack of a better term—is best achieved by dividing the population against itself; in Turkey, it works by dividing religious from secular, Kurd from Turk, and urban from rural. The end result is a mass population unable to see that their beloved leader cares more about money than about the average citizen’s well being. And that is a very real problem.

In The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen recognizes that

The tendency of the pecuniary life is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian temperament, but with the substitution of fraud and prudence, or administrative ability, in place of that predilection for physical damage that characterizes the early barbarian. This substitution of chicanery in place of devastation takes place only in an uncertain degree [. . .] The conventional scheme of decent living calls for a considerable exercise of the earlier barbarian traits (Veblen 1953[1899]: 161).

In simpler terms, Veblen is saying that—in the modern world—the barbaric instinct of humans does not manifest itself in out and out violence, rather it manifests itself in fraud and chicanery; in a word violence becomes deception. In Turkey, Mr. Erdogan’s style of rule shows that Nietzsche’s will to power is alive and well in the modern world, there can be no doubt about it. This fact was most recently made clear following a football match in late April.

According to a recent OdaTV story, Mr. Erdogan himself encouraged Besiktas to play out the second leg of their Turkish Cup Semi-final tie with Fenerbahce in late April after the match had to be rescheduled following crowd violence. While Besiktas chairman Fikret Orman said that the decision not to play was not his but that the fans wanted it, Youth and Sports Minister Osman Bak responded that “the sir wants it this way”, implying that Mr. Erdogan wanted Besiktas to play. While Mr. Bak told Mr. Orman to “do what is necessary”, Besiktas still did not come out to play. Regardless of whether one believes this was a right or wrong decision in sporting terms, it is clear that Mr. Erdogan—from the beginning—had a desire to see the match played out. Indeed, his first response was that the violence—which marred the first attempt to play the game—was a “set up”. Of course, the fan’s behavior was unacceptable. And—were there a semblance of rule of law—perhaps Fenerbahce would have been punished and Besiktas would not have had to even make the decision to not come out for the match. But the rule of law matters little when it comes to globalized extreme capitalism. Indeed, Mr. Erdogan knew that there was money to be made from the Istanbul derby, as televisions across the country would tune into it and make money for A Spor, the pro-government channel which holds the rights to the Ziraat Turkish Cup (A competition which has been a money maker for pro-government media figures in the past). Football here just represents another avenue where improper behavior (and the rule of law) can be ignored when it comes to securing profits for those who are close to the Turkish ruling class.

As I said at the outset, Turkish football has long been a harbinger of economic crisis in Turkey. Reuters reported in February of 2016 that “ambitions to secure a place at international soccer’s top table have come at a high cost for Turkey’s leading clubs”. Indeed, according to the story, “the 18 teams in Turkey’s top league [in 2016 were] saddled with 4.2 billion lira ($1.4 billion) in debt, around half owed to banks”. Again, according to Reuters, Turkey’s big clubs were in big trouble as far back as 2015:

Galatasaray reported a net loss of 87.5 million lira in the year to the end of May 2015, while Fenerbahce lost 181.2 million. Besiktas and Trabzonspor lost 140.5 million and 104 million respectively, according to stock market filings.

Galatasaray’s short-term liabilities – debt due within one year – stood at 527 million lira, Fenerbahce’s at 477.5 million lira, Besiktas’s 338 million lira and Trabzonspor’s at 220 million lira at end May 2015.

But the big names and big new stadiums put football fans to sleep, just like the shiny shopping malls of Istanbul have many believing that the current currency crisis will pass sooner rather than later. As American Sociologist C. Wright Mills once said, given the “ascendant trend of rationalization, the individual ‘does the best he can.’ He gears his aspirations and his work to the situation he is in, and from which he can find no way out. In due course, he does not seek a way out: he adapts. That part of his life which is left over from work, he uses to play, to consume, ‘to have fun’” (Mills, The Sociological Imagination 2000[1959]: 170). It is this kind of blind consumption—this acquiescence to the status quo created by extreme capitalism—which has people in Turkey (and all over the world) consuming beyond their means and, eventually, results in economic crisis; it is part and parcel of the periodic “crises of capitalism” which Karl Marx pointed out over a century ago.

This is also why Mr. Erdogan can ignore his people during a currency crisis in order to benefit those close to him. Since construction is the major source of income for the Turkish rentier state, Mr. Erdogan was reluctant at first to raise interest rates (the main path to keeping the Lira competitive, and a move eventually taken) since it would threaten the construction industry. At the same time, with many of his supporters keeping their money in foreign currency, Mr. Erdogan is—in effect—making his supporters richer through arbitrage with every day that the Turkish Lira loses value. It is a classic example of a leader enriching himself and his supporters at the expense of the average citizen. No, it is not about Mr. Erdogan. It is about the structure of the entire globalized economy. Even Hillary Clinton can even claim (incredulously) that “Democrats rescued the American economy”. Globalist figures like this have such little respect for their people that they lie to them day in and day out; globalist figures like this are also why it is imperative that people put identity politics aside and truly come together in order to take back their countries from the globalist abyss.

As an avid collector of football shirts, the headline “How a soccer jersey sparked the latest Germany-Turkey spat” of a 15 May 2018 article by Siobhan O’Grady in The Washington Post immediately caught my eye. As a dual citizen of a Western country (the United States) and Turkey, I felt the tensions that the footballers in question—both Mesut Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan—must have been feeling themselves. Especially because I study the intersection of football and nationalism in Turkey, I know that this event is about much more than just football shirts and Turkey’s fraught relationship with Germany; in fact, this small event is indicative of both the failures of globalism, as well as the crisis of modern—and “Western”—liberalism.

On the surface, the decision by Manchester City’s German-Turkish footballer Ilkay Gundogan to present a jersey to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the inscription “With great respect for my president” seems to be a minor issue. In years past it may have been but a footnote in the day’s news. Yet, in this age—when it seems as if most people are all too willing to be “offended”—something as innocuous as the gifting of a football shirt has become grounds for outrage. Indeed, as French Sociologist Michel Foucault said, “modern society is perverse”.

And it is this event which so clearly demonstrates just how perverse modern society has become. Should Mr. Gundogan have called Mr. Erdogan “my president” while playing for Germany’s national football team? The president of the German football association (DFB), Reinhard Grindel, did not seem to think so, and politicians from both the right (Beatrix von Storch of the Alternative for Germany Party) and left (Cem Ozdemir, a former leader of the Green Party and himself of Turkish descent) seemed to agree. As a representative of the German national football team, Mr. Gundogan would have done well to recognize that it is the German—and not Turkish—football system which built him into the world star that he is today; as such, he should have recognized that his president is German (and that his country) is Germany. Had Mr. Gundogan wanted to embrace his Turkish side wholeheartedly, he could have rejected Germany (and all of the privilege that comes with playing for one of the best national sides in world football) and chosen to play for Turkey, similar to Manchester United’s talismanic Ryan Giggs who rejected England in favor of his native Wales despite the corresponding lack of international prestige that went with choosing the Red Dragons. In Giggs’ words:

It still bugs me when people ask if I wished I’d played for England. It’s the question that’s bugged more than any other over the last 10 years. I’m Welsh, end of story. My parents are Welsh, my grandparents are Welsh. The mix-up came from the fact that I played for England schoolboys. That’s what confuses people. But I’d rather go through my career without qualifying for a major championship rather than play for a country in which I wasn’t born in or one that had nothing to do with my parents. That’s just stupid.

Had Mr. Gundogan been as straightforward as Mr. Giggs—and perhaps sacrificed fame and fortune for family ties—it is likely that there would have been very little backlash as a result of his actions.

Yet, in the globalized world, it is not so simple; indeed Mr. Gundogan—as discussed above—owes much of his sporting pedigree to the German system. During my childhood I myself often toyed with the question of which country I would represent in international football (thankfully, I was never a good enough footballer to actually have to make this decision) and I am aware that this is a difficult choice for anyone to make. Having not grown up in the (extreme) globalized age, however, I was able to make my own judgements and have been able to wholeheartedly embrace both of my nations. In the modern world, however, the push for “diversity” and “multi-culturalism” has attempted to create a meaningless mélange of cultures; far from making people “multi-cultural” or even “bi-cultural” it has instead made people confused, and Mr. Gundogan’s case is a perfect example of this confusion.

Judging by this case, Mr. Gundogan still identifies with his Turkish background. This may be due in no small part to the fact that—as the 15 May 2018 article notes— “many German Turks say they still face discrimination because of their ethnicity and religion”. Indeed, the German state might not have been as successful in assimilating its sizable Turkish immigrant population as it would like to believe. And this is the main point. There is nothing shameful in Mr. Gundogan’s inscription to the Turkish President itself, and it is not helpful to applaud—or disparage—Mr. Gundogan’s choice without being cognizant of the fact that many factors outside of his control likely went into his decision to call Mr. Erdogan “my president”. As an individual citizen, Mr. Gundogan has every right to express his admiration for any political figure that he desires. This is because footballers are not robots; they are human beings with very real human emotions. Despite the rationalizing tendencies of the modern world (in Weberian terms), emotion still plays a major role.

Many scholars of nationalism recognize the deep emotive bond created by national identities. And despite the emphasis on means-end rationality in our societies and the growing importance of capital interests in modern football, nationalism remains a major force in our world. There is no “global village”, despite what post-modern globalists may believe. If national bonds and cultural identities were as unimportant as the proponents of globalization claim, then it is likely that Germany might have been more successful in integrating its Turkish community. By the same token, it is also likely that the German FA would not have expressed their concerns with Mr. Gundogan’s actions in such overtly nationalist terms. For instance, the president of the DFB, Mr. Grindel, said that “football and the DFB stand for values that Mr. Erdogan does not sufficiently respect”. Similarly, the coach of the German national team, Joachim Low, said that “when you play for Germany you represent German values”. Were it not for Germany’s distaste for Mr. Erdogan, it is unlikely that the jersey would have been an issue; indeed, it is the two-faced nature of modern liberalism which has caused this event to become overblown: according to modern liberals, multiculturalism is good to a degree…but when it begins to threaten the nation’s values, it becomes a problem. Yet these are two irreconcilable positions.

Just as Edward Said noted that “orientalism” said more about the West than it did about the East, so too does this small event tell us more about Western “liberalism” in Germany than it does about Turkey and its supposed Eastern “despotism”. We see that the utopian visions of “multiculturalism” and “pluralism” in the West are—in reality—very difficult to achieve in practice. Despite the continuing attacks on nationalism throughout the world, the emotive connection that individuals feel towards their national identities, cultures, and values are shown both by Mr. Gundogan’s actions, as well as by the DFB’s response to those actions. By bringing in the concept of values, the DFB is making a judgement on Mr. Gundogan’s moral character which may be unwarranted; Mr. Gundogan could have been merely expressing his affinity for the Turkish nation rather than for a leader specifically. Yet this alternative interpretation is not provided by the main(lame)stream media which prefers to spread messages of division.

In short, ignoring the emotive aspects of national identity may be doing the world more harm than good by encouraging divisions and the creation of a dangerous double standard. The world would do well to recognize that, as scholars like Anthony D. Smith and Walker Connor have noted, nationalism will not be going away any time soon.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been much maligned for his criticism of mainstream news outlets like the New York Times; he has indeed repeatedly criticized them for being “fake news” and has described them as “failing”. Of course, as is to be expected, the main (lame)stream media—like CNN—have hit back at Mr. Trump’s criticism with columns like Brian Stelter’s; that this particular column should carry the heading “Reliable Sources” is almost as absurd as the name of the Soviet Union’s main newspaper, Pravda, which was translated as “True”. Interestingly, Mr. Stelter’s claim that the New York Times (NYT) is not failing is based on purely economic concerns; Fortune reports that Mr. Trump’s opposition to the NYT has only served to bolster the periodical, whose stock was trading at a nine year high as of July 2017. Reuters corroborates this claim, as the globalist news outlet reported profits of over 15 million dollars in the second quarter of 2017.

What is surprising is that CNN and Fortune do not seem to understand that the “success” of a news outlet is not defined in terms of profit; rather its success is defined by its service to the people. Norwegian-American Sociologist Thorstein Veblen pointed out long ago that the commercialization of both media and education would have negative consequences, since it would mean that both would write for profits and—by extension—for the interests of those who would be providing investment. Taken in these terms, it should be clear that the main (lame)stream media is most certainly failing; they are writing in the interests of the global capitalist elite, but not at all in the interests of the millions of middle and lower class citizens at large.

A recent piece in the New York Times—written by John Branch about famous Turkish footballer Hakan Sukur—is a perfect example of the failing New York Times and, indeed, the failing main(lame) stream media in general. The 3 May 2018 piece makes Mr. Sukur out to be an innocent refugee, escaping an “authoritarian regime”; it is a portrait of an immigrant “trying to build his own American dream for his family”. While this, of course, follows the pro-immigrant and pro-victim narrative of globalism, the truth is a bit more complicated than Mr. Branch admits (or, perhaps, even knows—after all, journalism in the modern era has become a refuge for surface level analyses which often lack knowledge of deeper details). While many of my fellow Sociologists mock “the American Dream”, it is interesting that the NYT is so eager to bring it up—especially when looking to legitimate a famous figure who is being described as an innocent victim.

In Mr. Branch’s story, he seems to insinuate that the attempted coup of 15 July 2016 was a good thing (after all, authoritarian regimes are “bad” and need toppling). Please see the passage in question:

It was his [Mr. Sukur’s] first interview since he left Turkey in 2015, nearly a year before the 2016 deadly coup that tried, and failed, to topple the authoritarian regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former friend and political ally.

The most insidious passage—indeed, the most repulsive portion—of Mr. Branch’s reporting, however, comes in his description of Mr. Gulen’s Hizmet movement:

Gulen’s Hizmet movement has, for decades, infiltrated Turkey’s institutions with a moderate strain of Islam, trying to nudge the country from the inside toward democracy, education and cultural openness more associated with Europe than much of today’s Middle East.

I have bolded the most important parts since they are, in my mind, absurd. That the New York Times—one of the leading news providers in not only the United States, but the entire world—should describe a movement which attempted to subvert Turkish democracy by attempting a military coup as one which tried to “nudge the country toward democracy” is a gross misrepresentation of reality. The New York Times seems to think that they can shape public opinion by using catch phrases and catch words like “moderate Islam”, “cultural openness”, and “democracy” in order to shape public opinion. This is, very clearly, an egregious example of an attempt by the media to support a very dangerous man in the name of progressive politics.

Observers should be aware of the duplicitous nature of the globalist mass media which prefers to play on emotions rather than report on facts. Mr. Gulen is no democrat, nor is he a champion of any kind of Islam; rather, he is a capitalist who looks to transform Islam into one more amenable to capitalist ideals (as the sociologist Cihan Tugal masterfully explains in his book Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism). That the New York Times would support a man who quite possibly ordered the bombing of his own nation’s parliament—and whose purported actions killed almost three hundred innocent people—as a supporter of “democracy” is both absurd and extremely troubling. For those of us who expect veracity from our news media—and despite the fact that ABC news thinks “The Colbert Report” is legitimate news (it is not)—this kind of reporting needs to be called out. It has no place in a country which prides itself on “freedom of the press”. We should all strive to take back our countries, and our free press, in the process.